Emile Durkheim and C. G. Jung:
Structuring a Transpersonal Sociology of Religion
[Article originally appeared in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1990, 29(4), 482-495.]
Susan F. Greenwood, retired
University of Maine
Religion is a prevalent theme in the works of both Emile Durkheim and C. G. Jung, who participated
in a common intellectual milieu. A comparison of Durkheim’s collective consciousness and Jung’s
collective unconscious reveals strikingly similar concepts. The components of these structures,
collective representations and archetypes, illustrate interdependent sociological and psychological
processes in the theorized creation of religious phenomena. An analysis of the constitutive elements
in these processes offers a basis for structuring a transpersonal sociology of religion.
T
Keywords: collective consciousness, collective unconscious, transpersonal, representationalism,
collective representations, archetypes, social facts
he works of Emile Durkheim and C. G. Jung
and commentary upon their writing comprise
a significant body of knowledge in sociology
and psychology. Since both theorists deal with diverse
topics, the intra- and inter-unifying significance of
religion throughout their works does not immediately
manifest itself. Yet religion is of paramount concern for
both Durkheim and Jung (Pickering, 1984; Wehr, 1985/
1987).
Religion, writes Durkheim (1893/1984), is an
“outstanding form” (p. 227) of the collective consciousness.1
The collective consciousness contains sacred religious
beliefs, or collective representations, and binds societies
together through publicly acknowledged symbols and
rites. The sacred thus represents that which is socially
acceptable in religion.
In counterpoint, Jung (1921/1974) writes that
religion symbolizes an “inward movement of the libido
into the unconscious” (para. 423). To forget the gods
means to risk ignoring the archetypal forces of the
collective unconscious (1928/1966, para. 163). Religion
thus implies a “‘careful consideration’ of unknown
dangers and agencies” (para. 164). Acknowledgment
of both conscious and unconscious elements becomes
a means of psychological salvation, a private religious
realization (1921/1974, para. 326).
The sociology of Durkheim and the psychology
of Jung thus present respectively public and private
approaches to religion. These approaches offer
comprehensive and complementary systems as both
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thinkers seek to explain the social and psychological
manifestations of religion, Durkheim through the
collective consciousness and collective representations,
and Jung through the collective unconscious and the
archetypes. Their systems contain striking structural
similarities noted by only a few scholars (Guala, 1970;
Meštrović, 1985, 1988c; Progoff, 1953; Staude, 1976).
To date no detailed textual analysis exists with which
to substantiate the relationship between Durkheim’s
and Jung’s ideas. This approach holds the potential for
opening new theoretical applications in the sociology of
religion.
In suggesting the broad outlines of a proposed
synthesis, as well as its practical applications, I present
here: 1) a literature review of scholars who have analyzed
both Durkheim and Jung; 2) a discussion of Durkheim’s
and Jung’s biographies and common intellectual
milieu to reveal some significant socio-cultural
affinities; 3) a comparative analysis of Durkhem’s and
Jung’s theories, which show a remarkable but littlerecognized congruence of religious thought stemming
from the philosophy of Schopenhauer; and 4) a basis
for structuring a transpersonal sociology of religion.
“Transpersonal” refers to a simultaneously objective and
subjective awareness and will be defined more fully later.
A major feature of the present analysis is
an emphasis on the socio-cultural context in which
Durkheim and Jung wrote. Intellectual concerns at the
turn of the century focused on representationalism and
on the concept of the unconscious (Meštrović, 1988c,
Studies, 32(2), 2013, pp. 42-52
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
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p. 94), often ignored in many analyses of Durkheim
and Jung. The aim of this essay is to identify affinities
in Durkheim’s and Jung’s approaches based on reading
their works in proper historical context.
The Work to Date
he full implications of the striking similarities
between Durkheim and Jung have remained largely
unacknowledged in both sociology and psychology
because no thorough effort has been made to link
their theories. Such an effort becomes the first step in
elucidating a transpersonal approach. Meštrović (1988c),
whose charge for a “reformation of sociology” (p. 17),
dictates a synthesis of both objective and subjective
realities, has provided a sound foundation for this effort.
Progoff (1953), Guala (1970), and Staude (1976) have
also examined the Durkheim-Jung connection.
Progoff (1953) wrote that Jung, indebted to the
sociological concepts of Durkheim and Levy-Bruhl,
adopted Durkheim’s basic concept of the “collective
representations” (p. 176). Progoff contributed to an
understanding of the social nature of Jung’s collective
unconscious by recognizing that to Jung “the social is
essentially the unconscious” (p. 163).
Guala (1970) offered an analysis of Jung’s
archetypes, Durkheim’s collective representations, and
Levi-Strauss’s models and functions. While concluding
that Durkheim and Jung are joined semantically, Guala
observed that they remain apart “by the different levels of
their reasoning” (p. 131). In ignoring the presence of the
unconscious in Durkheim’s work (as noted by Meštrović,
1984), Guala failed to perceive that the unconscious is
an essential link between Durkheim and Jung.
In attempting to move from “depth psychology to
depth sociology,” Staude (1976, pp. 314-318) has claimed
that to appreciate Jung’s concern with the collective
nature of both consciousness and the unconscious, one
must be aware of his debts to Durkheim, Hubert, and
the French sociological school. Staude believed that
Jung’s definition of the collective unconscious indicates
a collective, transpersonal dimension in the individual
psyche, a subjective counterpart to Durkheim’s collective
consciousness. The intricacies of the objective and the
subjective may be more clearly understood through the
word transpersonal, which I will discuss shortly. Finally,
Guala made no reference to Progoff, nor did Staude to
either Progoff or Guala.
The word transpersonal needs to be explained
more fully. Following Wilber’s (1984) terminology and
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Emile Durkheim and C. G. Jung
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 43
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Meštrović’s (1987) presentation of Marcel Mauss’s “‘total’
social fact as a phenomenon that includes the sociological,
psychological, and physiological dimensions . . .
simultaneously” (p. 567), I suggest that a transpersonal
perspective implies that religion should be experienced
simultaneously in its social and psychological aspects,
and that these aspects are not mutually exclusive.
This perspective, superseding the limitations imposed
by traditional sociological analyses, fulfills Wilber’s
proclamation (1984) that “a ‘transpersonal sociology’ is
a discipline desperately awaiting birth” (p. 106).
The word transpersonal, in suggesting the
validity of both objective and subjective forms of
religious realization, moves beyond semantics; it implies
simultaneous sociological and psychological, or exoteric
and esoteric, awareness. We might even say transpersonal
demands an integrational imperative in that all aspects
of a religious experience must be brought to conscious
awareness in order to be understood fully. While
transpersonal is linked stylistically with the modern
era, in actuality it contains much the same meaning as
nineteenth-century representationalism.
Representationalism and Religion
epresentationalism suggests that the human mind
can apprehend objects only through ideas which
represent those objects (Flew, 1984, p. 305; Meštrović,
1988c). Schopenhauer (1818/1969) promoted the use
of this concept and probably provided a common
intellectual foundation for Durkheim’s explicit and
Jung’s implicit concepts of homo duplex (Meštrović,
1985, 1988a, 1988b, 1988c, 1989a, 1989b), as well as
for Durkheim’s (1897/1951) and Jung’s (1921/1974)
descriptions of psychological types.2
Representationalism allowed Durkheim to
eschew the extremes of the long-standing object-subject
distinction through his stated reconciliation of classical
empiricism and apriorism (Durkheim, 1912/1965, p.
31; Meštrović, 1985, 1989b, p. 263). Durkheim and his
followers labeled their sociology renovated rationalism,
the implications of which are central to Durkheim’s
explanation of religious phenomena.
Durkheim (1897/1951) writes, “Religion is in a
word the system of symbols by means of which society
becomes conscious of itself; it is the characteristic way
of thinking of collective existence” (p. 312). Later
he amplifies, “At bottom, the concept of totality, that
of society and that of divinity are very probably only
different aspects of the same notion” (1912/1965, p. 490).
Thus a Durkheimian interpretation of symbols would
include not only the objective manifestation, a totem for
example, but also the subjective realization that a totem
reflects a society’s consciousness of itself as an entity sui
generis (pp. 235-237).
With this discussion, then, we can begin to
appreciate the idea that the sociological aspect of a
transpersonal approach also contains its opposite, a
psychological awareness. To ignore the presence of
opposites, the objective and subjective or the seen and the
unseen, within the single reality—the totem—indicates
a one-dimensional religious understanding.
Similarly, Jung’s (1934/1980) “transcendent
function” (para. 524) implies use of representationalism,
again a mediation of the object-subject distinction. The
transcendent function, in bridging the gulf between
conscious and unconscious functions, uses both rational
(the real or objective) and irrational (the imaginary or
subjective) categories. It manifests itself in the appearance
of symbols, which often possess religious significance.
Jung (1938/1969) perceived the union of opposites as
a form of psychological salvation, an incarnation of
the divine in the human: “The self, as a totality, is . .
. indistinguishable from a God-image” (para. 232-233).
This concept allows us to employ the psychological
aspect, the unconscious or subjective, of a transpersonal
approach while also realizing the presence of its opposite,
a sociological or conscious awareness.
Thus, Jung’s transcendent function mediates
conscious and unconscious religious factors within the
psyche, and similarly, Durkheim’s renovated rationalism
mediates conscious and unconscious religious
factors within society. Considered simultaneously,
Durkheim’s and Jung’s approaches reveal the necessity
of a transpersonal approach to religion: Without it, to
paraphrase the Gospel according to Matthew, we will see
without seeing, hear without hearing.
An examination of Durkheim’s and Jung’s focus
upon religion through the relevant literature makes
clearer their roles in developing a transpersonal sociology
of religion. I am by no means able to summarize here
the full extent of their treatment of religion, but I will
attempt to suggest avenues for future investigations.
The important point is that both Durkheim and Jung
share fin de siecle philosophical assumptions derived,
directly or indirectly, from Schopenhauer. Because their
understandings of human nature and representationalism
have not been apprehended in the socio-cultural context
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International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
in which they wrote, the full extent of their intellectual
affinities has been underappreciated. To understand
the role of religion in their works, we must exercise, as
Mills (1959) demands, our “sociological imagination
[which] enables us to grasp history and biography and
the relations between the two within society” (p. 6).
The Religious and Intellectual Milieux
espite being the sons of clergy, both Durkheim, born
in France in 1857, and Jung, born in Switzerland
in 1875, appeared bored and repelled by formal religion
(Pickering, 1984; Wehr, 1985/1987). Durkheim came
to emphasize religion’s moral benefits for society, while
Jung turned inward to explore numinous events, or those
having some mystical or holy significance. Durkheim
(1912/1965) wrote:
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This division of the world into two domains, the
one containing all that is sacred, the other all that is
profane, is the distinctive trait of religious thought;
the beliefs, myths, dogmas and legends are either
representations or systems of representations which
express the nature of sacred things. (p. 52)
Thus Durkheim stresses the importance of the concept
of representation: Representations signify the underlying
reality at the same time that they are a “reality”
(subjectively) in their own right. For Durkheim, this
reality is the nature sui generis of a religious collective
consciousness.
Jung (1938/1969) wrote:
To many people it may seem strange that a doctor
with a scientific training should interest himself in
the Trinity at all. But anyone who has experienced
how closely and meaningfully these representations
collectives are bound up with the weal and woe of
the human soul will readily understand that the
central symbol of Christianity must have, above all
else, a psychological meaning. (para. 171)
Acknowledgment of both conscious and unconscious
elements within each person thus becomes a means of
psychological salvation, a private religious realization
(Jung, 1921/1974, para. 326). The above passages are
not isolated quotations about religion but illustrate
continuous themes that interested Durkheim and Jung.
With regard to Durkheim, Pickering (1984)
has written, “The alleged mysticism which was said to
have engulfed his concept of society and his approach
to collective representations had associated with them
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mysterious qualities which were not far removed from the
divine” (p. 8). Meštrović (1988c) believes that Durkheim
was always concerned with religion. Wehr (1985/1987)
has written that, including Psychological Types, almost all
of Jung’s works in the second half of his life featured
religion: “Jung’s object, in fact, was nothing less than to
build a spiritual bridge between traditional dogma and
immediate experience” (p. 299).
Durkheim thus focused his attention upon
religion as manifested in social experience, while Jung
emphasized religion as revealed by the inner world of
the psyche. Meštrović (1984) has countered the midtwentieth-century implication that Durkheim had no use
for psychology, observing that Durkheim (1924/1974)
stated unequivocally, “Collective psychology is sociology”
(p. 34). At the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris,
Durkheim found among his classmates, characterized as
the best and brightest of a generation (Lukes, 1972, pp.
44-45), the psychologist Pierre Janet. This association
with Janet was one of many such contacts, and it led to
interesting connections with Freud’s work.
Bellah (1973) has called attention to “significant
parallels with Freud, since Durkheim was trying to
understand the unconscious sources of social existence as
Freud was the unconscious sources of personal existence”
(p. liv). Staude (1976) has discussed the “progressive
development in the theory of the unconscious from
Freud, through Jung, to Levi-Strauss” (p. 334). Meštrović
(1982, 1988a, p. 171, 1988b, p. 70, 1988c, p. 49) has
carefully detailed Freud’s many references to Durkheim
and his followers. Even more significantly, Meštrović
(1984) has substantiated the infrequently recognized
role of the unconscious in Durkheim’s concepts. Jones
(1986) has also pointed out that between 1897 and 1898,
Durkheim evinced “increased interest in the psychology
of the unconscious” (p. 617). Thus Durkheim’s use
of the unconscious appears to be a relatively recent
“discovery,” while Freud’s use of the unconscious has
been commonplace information since he first published.
Both Freud, Jung’s mentor, and Janet studied
under Jean Paul Charcot, a prominent neurologist at the
Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, and both were influenced
by his work on the psychology of neurotic states.3
Meštrović has cited Janet as an important conduit of
Schopenhauerian philosophy into French psychology.
Indeed, Meštrović (1982, 1988a, 1988b, 1988c, 1989a,
1989b) places Freud and Durkheim in the stream of
Schopenhauer’s philosophy. Jung too acknowledged a
Emile Durkheim and C. G. Jung
debt to Schopenhauer as evidenced by his numerous
citations to the philosopher (Forryan & Glover, 1979,
pp. 598-599; Staude 1976, p. 318).
Another link between Durkheim and Jung is
found in the work of Levy-Bruhl, the anthropologist.
Lukes (1972, p. 294) has noted that Durkheim
corresponded with Levy-Bruhl. Meštrović (1988c) writes
that Levy-Bruhl, “an intimate friend of both Durkheim
and Jung (according to Levy-Bruhl’s granddaughter),
may have cross-fertilized several schools in Europe at the
time” (p. 99). Jung (1934/1980, para. 5) acknowledged
that his concept of archetypes and Levy-Bruhl’s
representations collectives were one and the same.
All of these personal and intellectual
connections suggest that commonalities of thought
abounded around the fin de siecle and reveal Durkheim’s
and Jung’s theoretical interdependence in describing
religious phenomena. Religion, therefore, appears
highly significant for both Durkheim and Jung in their
private and public lives, in the individual and collective
representations that influenced their work. This
acknowledgment completes another step in the process
of understanding the development of a transpersonal
sociology of religion.4 Yet we must consider another
related factor, that of translation, in dealing with
interpretations of Durkheim’s ideas.
The Translation Factor
urkheim wrote in French, Jung in German.
Controversy over translation has not yet surfaced
with Jung as it has with Durkheim. Scholars discussing
Durkheim’s conscience collective must address the
translation factor: The single French word conscience
translates into English either as “conscience” or as
“consciousness.” Lalande (1928), who moved in the
same circles as Durkheim, compiled a dictionary of the
then-current usage of philosophical terms. He (pp. 127128) offered first a psychological meaning for conscience
and found it akin to the German words Bewusstsein and
Selbstbewusstsein, and to the English word consciousness.
Second, he listed a moral meaning, akin to the German
word Gewissen and to the English word “conscience.”
Thus some scholars (e.g., Meštrović, 1985)
have chosen the original French phrase. Others (e.g.,
Halls, as cited in Durkheim, 1895/1982) have used the
English word consciousness, and still others (e.g., Lukes
1972), conscience. Some (e.g., Traugott, 1978) have even
alternated between the two English words, depending
upon their interpretation of the particular section.
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International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 45
Bohannon wrote that no one used ambiguity
with greater effect than did Durkheim (Wolff, 1960,
p. 78). Lukes (1972) cited five different ways in which
Durkheim used the word “society” (p. 21). Is it possible
that Durkheim’s thought holds a flexibility and a beauty
through this very ambiguity? Perhaps sociology, having
produced, as Mills (1959) observed, the extremes of grand
theory and abstracted empiricism, has now matured
enough to find the balance between these polarities of
the sociological continuum.
I suggest that a Jungian reading of Durkheim,
and a Durkheimian reading of Jung, promotes this
balance and provides yet another way to apply a
transpersonal perspective through intellectual flexibility;
in essence, we can overlay one approach while reading
another. To facilitate this process further, I will now
explore Durkheim’s collective consciousness and Jung’s
collective unconscious.
The Collective Consciousness and the Collective
Unconscious
ung is well known for his work on the unconscious,
but few scholars have acknowledged the presence
of the unconscious within Durkheim’s work, as noted
earlier. Although Durkheim (1924/1974) referred to
sociology as collective psychology, the psychological
implications have been largely ignored by sociologists.
Likewise, the sociological implications of Jung’s work
have been neglected by psychologists. Collins (1988a)
has used Staude’s explication of Jung’s theory to
explain life transitions, but in general social scientists
remain unaware of Jung’s relevance in understanding
Durkheim’s explanation of religion, as manifested by the
collective consciousness.
Let us turn first to the definitions used by the
authors themselves. Durkheim (1893/1984) characterized
the collective consciousness thus:
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The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the
average members of a society forms a determinate
system with a life of its own. By definition, it is
diffused over society as a whole. . . . It does not
change with every generation but, on the contrary,
links successive generations to one another. . . . It is
the psychological type of society. (pp. 38-39)
For Jung (1934/1980), the collective unconscious is a
“psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal
nature which is identical in all individuals. This
collective unconscious does not develop individually
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International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the
archetypes” (para. 90).
The collective consciousness appears to
represent society, but as Durkheim points out, it is
only a representation, or a perception, of the totality of
society. Its unconscious aspects remain hidden, while its
conscious, social aspects appear more obvious in such
social facts as laws, statistics, and religious beliefs. As
Meštrović (1984) has explained, Durkheim repeatedly
emphasized, especially through reference to Janet, the
role of unconscious mental factors.
Janet’s influence appears obvious in Jung’s
formulation of the collective unconscious (e.g., Jung,
1934/1980, para. 490). Although the collective
unconscious is hidden from consciousness, it represents
the totality of the psyche. The collective unconscious
manifests itself in dreams, symbols, and behavior that
contain identifiable archetypes or primordial images.
These images contributed to the ancient mythologies,
which in time became part of many religious systems.
To understand more precisely how the collective
consciousness and the collective unconscious function,
we must turn to their respective components, the
collective representations and the archetypes.
Collective Representation and Archetypes
y turning to the concepts of collective representations
and archetypes, we retrace the steps followed by
both Durkheim and Jung, who first described the overall
structures, the collective consciousness and the collective
unconscious, and then the respective components
within the structures. Like the collective consciousness
and the collective unconscious, Durkheim’s collective
representations and Jung’s archetypes possess both
sociological and psychological aspects as well as the
common element of the unconscious.
Durkheim’s (1895/1964) first methodological
rule suggests that we “treat social facts as things” (p.
14). In other words, as Pickering (1984, p. 153, p. 224)
has noted, the sacred as social fact is a thing-in-itself,
but it always appears as a representation symbolizing an
underlying reality. Durkheim (1895/1964) wrote, “We
must, therefore, consider social phenomena in themselves
as distinct from the consciously formed representations
of them in the mind” (p. 28). He noted that Janet proved
“that many acts, while bearing all the signs of being
conscious, are not in fact so” (Durkheim, 1924/1974,
p. 20). Acts are thus both conscious and unconscious.
Meštrović (1984) has noted, “Durkheim regarded
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social facts as a type of collective representation whose
reality eludes the consciousness of agents, witnesses,
and society itself” (p. 268). What indeed are collective
representations, how are they related to archetypes, and
why is a knowledge of both essential to a transpersonal
sociology of religion?
In exploring the concepts of collective
representations and archetypes, we may first assume that
the unconscious plays a key role. Ambiguity remains
an ever-present factor, since we can never fully know
another’s motives or even our own. We may observe
the manifestations of the unconscious, as Durkheim
(1895/1964) pointed out, through social facts, or as Jung
(1921/1974, para. 814-829) pointed out, through the
process of symbol-formation. Second, we can examine
the words that Durkheim and Jung used to describe
collective representations and archetypes. Consider,
for example, Durkheim’s (1924/1974) statement that
representations are “partially autonomous realities
with . . . the power to attract and repel each other” (p.
31). Collective representations are thus characterized
by a synthetic process. This process, embodying the
psycho-sociological aspect of the transpersonal, creates
sui generis social forces from the association of private
sentiments (p. 26).
As Durkheim (1912/1965, p. 25, p. 94) later
noted, mythologies provide a source of religious beliefs,
or representations, which leave “an indelible trace” and
which illustrate the most fundamental and collective
aspects of a society. He identified these collective
representations as:
the result of an immense cooperation, which stretches
out not only into space but into time as well: to make
them a multitude of minds have associated, united
and combined their ideas and sentiments; for them,
long generations have accumulated their experience
and their knowledge. (p. 29)
This accumulated knowledge resulting in religious
collective representations is also implicit in Jung’s
description of archetypes. Compare Durkheim’s
statement with Jung’s (1961/1965) description:
Archetypal statements are based upon instinctive
preconditions. . . . They have always been part of the
world scene—representations collectives, as Levy
Bruhl rightly called them. . . . Practical consideration
of these processes is the essence of religion, insofar
Emile Durkheim and C. G. Jung
as religion can be approached from a psychological
point of view. (para. 353)
Jung (1912/1956) further stated, “It is a
psychological fact that the archetype can seize hold of
the ego and compel it to act as the archetype wills” (para.
101). Commonality with Durkheim seems obvious, as
both describe a similar phenomenon. Jung (1928/1966)
echoed Durkheim’s description of the synthetic process
of forming collective representations when he stated
that the symbols of the collective unconscious, to be
understood on an individual level, must be “subjected to
a synthetic mode of treatment” (para. 122).
Specifically, the synthetic mode of treatment
requires the opposing states of the psyche to “face one
another in the fullest conscious opposition . . . while the
ego is forced to acknowledge its absolute participation
in both” (Jung, 1921/1974, para. 824). Such work
activates the “transcendent function” (para. 825), which
brings about a middle ground where the opposites
can be united. Since the psyche contains the constant
dynamic of tension between opposites, their “union”
signifies conscious awareness, inasmuch as possible, of
unconscious material. This description clearly illustrates
the social-psychological aspects of a transpersonal
perspective.
Jung’s description of psychological facts
resembles Durkheim’s social facts or collective
representations (see Meštrović, 1988c, p. 95, for an
elaboration of the unconscious within social facts).
Durkheim (1924/1974), in discussing the basis for
collective representations, wrote that psychic phenomena
“make themselves apparent by their characteristic
signs of . . . hesitation [and] tentativeness” (p. 20). His
words bear an uncanny resemblance to those of Jung
(1938/1969), who stated that unconscious factors, or
archetypes, can cause reactions to be “delayed, altered,
suppressed, or replaced by autonomous intruders” (para.
21). Both collective representations and archetypes
contain unconscious factors so that they can never be
known in entirety to humans. Both exert a compulsion
upon humans and affect behavior in bizarre ways.
Further explanation lies in Jung’s (1928/1966)
suggestion that the self prefigures the “God within
us,” since the self represents a psychological concept
expressing an unknowable essence which can “thwart
our will . . . obsess our consciousness . . . and . . .
influence our moods and action” (para. 400). Jung
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 47
echoes Durkheim’s emphasis on the divine as social
necessity by admonishing us not to leave out the divine
when considering autonomous contents, since the divine
is a psychological necessity. By affixing the attribute
“divine” to the workings of autonomous contents, we are
admitting their relatively superior force (para. 403).
In tracing the historical usage of the concept of
archetypes, Jung (1934/1980, para. 5, para. 89) described
archetypes as “universal images that have existed since the
remotest times” similar to Platonic forms. He cited LevyBruhl’s representations collectives, as well as Hubert’s
and Mauss’s categories of the imagination. In addition, he
listed Usener’s unconscious thinking, Bastian’s elementary
ideas, Kant’s doctrine of categories, St. Augustine’s ideae
principales, and Philo Judaeus’s and Irenaeus’s Imago Dei
(God-image). The Corpus Hermeticum’s God is archetypal
light. Jung also observed that the familiar characters in
fairy tales, such as the witch or the trickster, represent
archetypes. Thus Durkheim’s collective representations
and Jung’s archetypes appear to possess a similar
conceptual foundation. Although Durkheim’s use of
collective representations has generally been dropped
in favor of “social facts,” we must remember that the
category of collective representations subsumes social
facts, including their psychological, subjective dimension
(Meštrović, 1985).
Collective representations manifest themselves
especially in religions and in mythologies containing
“vast systems of representations” which “far from
being engraven through all eternity upon the mental
constitution of men . . . depend, at least in part, upon
factors that are historical and consequently social”
(Durkheim, 1912/1965, p. 25). Durkheim’s collective
representations appear to have their origins in distant
time, but because of their synthetic nature and ability to
form and reform, specific collective representations exert
a time-limited effect upon humans. Yet this effect may
exhibit great power, a power in part due to unconscious
factors.
Again, let us remember that collective
representations, while unfamiliar to modern day
sociologists, was a commonplace term in fin de siecle
society (Janik & Toulmin, 1973; Meštrović, 1985). Jung
(1934/1980) explained that collective representations,
described by Levy-Bruhl in primitive tribal lore, have
been modified from unconscious to “conscious formulae
. . . generally in the form of esoteric teaching. This last
is a typical means of expression for the transmission
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International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
of collective contents originally derived from the
unconscious” (para. 5). As with Durkheim, ambiguity
appears in this statement as we attempt to determine the
similarities between Jung’s archetypes and Durkheim’s
collective representations.
Through the preceding comparative analysis, I
conclude that Durkheim and Jung are indeed describing
the same process, and that through acknowledgement
of the similarity, we can complete yet another step in
analyzing religion from a transpersonal perspective.
Toward a Transpersonal Sociology of Religion
or Durkheim, religion revealed the organization of
society through the collective consciousness and the
collective representations, which together provide social
organization and enable society to become aware of itself.
Analogously, religion for Jung revealed the organization
of the self through the collective unconscious and the
archetypes, which together provide self-organization
and enable the self to become aware of its psychological
totality. With this brief review, I am ready to suggest
directions for a transpersonal sociology of religion.
Transpersonal, as defined earlier, addresses the
ambiguities in both Durkheim’s and Jung’s concepts
of religious phenomena. In so doing, it incorporates
traditional sociological analysis within a framework that
recognizes the validity of unconscious factors. We still
have difficulty today escaping from an overly rationalistic
mind-set stemming from the Enlightenment. Meštrović
(1984), for example, has written that the positivistic
tradition has neglected Durkheim’s use of the
unconscious. Yet as Meštrović (1988c, p. 77) has clearly
demonstrated, the unconscious cannot be divorced from
scientific endeavors.
Perhaps transpersonal aptly fits a description
of religious phenomena in a post-Enlightenment era,
as we begin to incorporate subjective ways of knowing
into the objective, positivistic tradition. In other
words, transpersonal suggests a methodology by which
unconscious factors may be studied simultaneously as
psychological and social facts. Ideally, transpersonal
could signify a new type of “enlightened” consciousness
by suggesting a synthesis of what are usually considered
antithetical elements—Durkheim’s sociology and Jung’s
psychology—through awareness of the psychological
aspects of the collective consciousness and of the
sociological aspects of the collective unconscious.
A possible origin of the seemingly antithetical
relationship between social and psychological facts lies
F
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within two Latin roots of the word “religion.” Rather
than being an abstruse exercise, these etymologies
highlight the underlying unity behind the surface
differences in Durkheim’s sociological and Jung’s
psychological approaches to religion and, in so doing,
help to structure a transpersonal perspective.
The early Christian Fathers’ emphasis upon the
binding nature of religion (Jung, 1938/1969, para. 982)
appears to reflect Durkheim’s concern with the socially
binding nature of religious rites and, as Meštrović (1988c)
has outlined, the obligatory morality that Durkheim’s
vision of religion implies. This meaning is exemplified
in religare, the preferred primitive root of religion,
which carries the connotation of “obligation” (Lewis &
Short, 1879/1975, p. 1556) or “binding” (Coser 1977,
p. 138). This meaning appears to capture the essence of
many contemporary sociological approaches to religion
which provide an objective description of religious
participation.
In contrast, let us examine the word religion
from Jung’s perspective. Jung emphasized reverence
and fear of archetypal religious forces operating on an
intuitive level beyond the five senses. This meaning is
embodied in religio, a “reverence for God (the gods),
the fear of God, connected with a careful pondering
of divine things” (Berger, 1969, p. 27; Lewis & Short,
1879/1975). Jung (1938/1969) added that religio means
“a careful observation and taking account of . . . the
numinous” (para. 982). A transpersonal approach thus
offers the possibility of a reconciliation between what
many people believe to be mutually exclusive forms of
religion, shown in part by Luckmann’s (1967) invisible
or private religion (akin to religio), which seeks to
dissociate itself from public church organization (akin
to religare). We might even identify the transpersonal
process as a divine dialectic which synthesizes these
forms of religion.
As we continue to transcend the strictly
sociological level of analysis, a Durkheimian-Jungian
consideration of symbols further develops the
transpersonal perspective. In recalling the previously
mentioned example of Durkheim’s totem, let us
substitute the cross for the totem. The cross appears
as a visible symbol of the collective consciousness to a
community of worshippers. The visible symbol is an
objective manifestation, but it also represents within
each worshipper a subjective realization of the group’s
consciousness of itself. This realization is emancipatory
in that both the objective and subjective natures of
the cross are understood simultaneously and that such
understanding demonstrates that the objective and
subjective are not mutually exclusive.5
Jung (1921/1974) described the opposition of
the psychological functions of sensation/intuition and
thinking/feeling as comprising the core of the psyche,
a symbolic cross. He (1946/1969, para. 523) saw the
psyche as literally at “cross purposes” with itself by
virtue of the struggle of these “warring” functions. The
four functions exist in consciousness as well as in the
unconscious, depending on the preferential hierarchy
in each individual psyche. The two lesser-preferred
functions become part of one’s shadow, the shadow
being an archetype of the collective unconscious (Jung,
1934/1980, para. 44). Jung (1946/1969) concluded,
“The cross as a form of suffering expresses psychic
reality” (para. 523). The anguish of coming to terms
with opposing functions ultimately reconciles them by
bringing them to conscious awareness. Literally, the
ego is crucified and then resurrected to psychological
wholeness (Jung, 1955/1984, para. 1664).
As with a Durkheimian interpretation of
the cross, the objective (the conscious psychological
functions) struggles with the subjective (the unconscious
psychological functions) in order that reconciliation take
place. This reconciliation resembles that achieved by
Durkheim’s renovated rationalism and Jung’s analytic
psychology with each theorist’s emphasis on empirical
as well as intuitive data. Thus a transpersonal approach
unifies both the sociological objective and subjective
and the psychological objective and subjective.
This approach will be the direction of my
future research as I attempt to extend, through a focus
on religion, Durkheim’s (1950/1957) search for a science
of moral facts. Toward this goal I shall investigate
a possible common philosophical heritage for both
sociology and modern Christian mysticism through
several theoretical treatments of perception (e.g., Jung’s
distinction between intuition and sensation).
The preceding examples suggest the possibility
of fruitful research not only in the sociology of religion
but also in the larger body of sociological theory when
the latter may involve religious considerations. I shall
briefly mention two ideas. First, in the sociology of
religion a transpersonal perspective could extend the
focus of the comparative method by adding the more
micro component of collective representations and
Emile Durkheim and C. G. Jung
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 49
archetypes to the usual macro approach. The macro
approach, rather than employing only the traditional
structural analysis, would include the collective
consciousness and the collective unconscious.
Use of a transpersonal comparative methodology
might reveal as yet unrecognized connections between
Western religions, traditionally more outwardly
or sociologically focused, and Eastern religions,
traditionally more inwardly or psychologically focused.
This analysis, through inclusion of unconscious factors,
would transcend the frequently one-dimensional or
positivistic approach of the functionalist, conflict, and
interactionist perspectives.
Second, the continuing discussion over macromicro issues provides an arena for theoretical applications
of a Durkheimian-Jungian approach. Although Collins
(1988b) has repeated the standard, anti-psychological
interpretations of Durkheim, he nevertheless works with
a conciliatory spirit to resolve differences between macroand micro-sociological views. The incorporation of a
Durkheimian-Jungian framework in the macro-micro
debate could reveal artificially constructed boundaries
designed, albeit unconsciously, to buttress a researcher’s
theoretical position. These boundaries could be exposed
by Durkheim’s collective consciousness, a macro entity
containing a micro entity, the collective representations,
and by Jung’s collective unconscious, a macro entity
containing a micro entity, the archetypes. In addition,
a Durkheimian-Jungian approach could strengthen
Collins’s (1988b) meso theories (e.g., network analysis
and organizational theory applied to religious factors),
which articulate his proposed rapprochement between
macro and micro issues.
In summary, Durkheim’s collective consciousness and collective representations reveal the social
manifestations of religion with psychological implications.
Jung’s archetypes and collective unconscious reveal the
psychological manifestations of religion with social
implications. Thus the structuring of a transpersonal
sociology of religion suggests a synthesis of Durkheim’s
and Jung’s own individual syntheses. It provides a whole
greater than the sum of its parts and the beginnings of a
new approach to which others may contribute their ideas.
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Notes
1. Durkheimian scholars differ on the translation of the
French phrase conscience collective. I have chosen
collective consciousness to indicate both moral and
perceptual meanings.
2. In Suicide (1897/1951) and in other works, Durkheim
describes psychological counterparts to his social
categories. His nephew and collaborator, Marcel Mauss,
argued that Durkheimian sociology presupposes a
psychology, particularly the psychologies of Wilhelm
Wundt in Germany and Theodule Ribot in France. In
turn, both Wundt and Ribot were heavily influenced
by Schopenhauer (Meštrović, 1988c, p. 48). Staude
(1976, p. 316) refers to Jung’s “teacher” Schopenhauer.
3. Janet developed the concept of the abaissement du
niveau mental, a lowering of the mental level. The
concept found its way into 12 of Jung’s books (Forryan
& Glover, 1979, p. 3). This was no coincidence, since
Janet was Jung’s supervisor when Jung interned at the
Salpetriere in 1904-05.
4. The aforementioned theoretical interdependence
is related to and promotes an understanding of the
applicability of critical theory, particularly Habermas’s
(1968/1971) concept of emancipatory interest, as
briefly discussed later in this paper.
5. This approach also enhances some versions of
postmodern social philosophy, in particular,
Habermas’s work in critical theory. Critical theory
has its roots in the so-called Frankfurt School and
draws largely upon Marx and Freud (Held, 1980). A
member of the “second generation” of critical theorists,
Habermas (1968/1971) built upon their foundations.
He developed a cognitive emancipatory interest to
show that “the self-formative process . . . depends
on the contingent conditions of both subjective and
objective nature” (p. 210). Analysis of self-realization
uses subjective socialization experiences as well as
objective “material exchange” communications.
Through emphasis on emancipation, a deepening
of the traditional sociological approach of “looking
behind the scenes,” critical theory thus moves closer
to a transpersonal perspective.
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International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
Acknowledgments
The author expresses gratitude to Professors Kyriacos C.
Markides and Stephen Marks, Sociology, and Jay Bregman,
History, University of Maine, who supervised the master’s
research on which this paper is based. Professor Stjepan G.
Meštrović, Sociology, Texas A&M University, provided
many helpful suggestions as well as inspiration through his
own work. Thanks are sent also to the editor, the anonymous
reviewers, and Professor Steven Barkan, Sociology, University
of Maine, whose comments strengthened the paper.
About the Author
Susan F. Greenwood, MA, graduated with honors from
Newburyport (MA) High School in 1959. She won a
competitive scholarship to Katharine Gibbs School in
Boston and held secretarial and administrative positions
in the Brown and Yale physics departments. In 1986, she
earned a B.A. in social work from the University of Maine
and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She began teaching as an
adjunct faculty member in Maine’s sociology department
in 1987, and in 1989 she earned an M.A. in liberal studies
with a focus on the sociology of religion. She continued
to teach and to do research as an adjunct with several
publications including a book chapter. Retiring in 2006 she
continued volunteer work as a nursing home ombudsman
and as a literacy volunteer. She and her husband Michael,
retired forestry professor, have been married for 52 years.
They have two sons and four grandchildren.
About the Journal
The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies is a
peer-reviewed academic journal in print since 1981. It is
published by Floraglades Foundation, and serves as the
official publication of the International Transpersonal
Association. The journal is available online at www.
transpersonalstudies.org, and in print through www.
lulu.com (search for IJTS).
Greenwood